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Ren
Kylie was exactly where Aaron had told me he’d last seen her, in a small lounge room just off the main hall. She grinned when I came in, unfolding her petite body from her armchair. “Ren!” Then her expression turned abruptly serious. “Is it time for you to leavealready?”
I shook my head, sitting down on the chair beside hers. “We’ve got about another hour. I’ve just been thinking…” I paused, trying to figure out the best way to approach this subject. The last thing I wanted was my best friend thinking I was trying to ditch her. But I wasn’t going to feel okay unless we had this one lastconversation.
“Thinking what?” Kylie prodded, watchingme.
I met her gaze, hoping she could read the emotion in mine. “You know how much I appreciate having you here. How glad I’ve been to have you on my side for the whole time we’ve been friends. So I promise you I’m not saying this because of what Iwant. But because you matter so much to me, I have to ask, now that things have gotten even more dangerous—are you sure you want to stayhere?”
Kylie gave me a wry smile. “Where else would Igo?”
“Back to your old life, I guess,” I said. “You have our apartment—I can keep paying my share of the rent, and hopefully I’ll be able to visit lots. You have your job. The vampires won’t hassle you there. But as long as you’re here with the shifters… I don’t think it’ll matter that you’re not one too. They’re not being careful with theirbullets.”
“Okay,” Kylie said. “I get why you’re worried. I’m not exactly feeling super keen about taking on gun-toting vampires either. But can I ask you something, and you answer totallyhonestly?”
“Of course,” Isaid.
She tipped her head, studying my expression even more carefully now. “If you could have your life be any way you wanted right now, just the most perfect possible situation, what would that looklike?”
God, what a question. Just the idea of being able to shed all this conflict made my heart swell and ache at the same time. I let my mind drift into that imaginary scenario. What would it look like if I could have everything I wanted? I’d promised her totalhonesty.
“I’d be living with all four of the guys, everyone happy and getting along, no more doubts between us. Going from estate to estate and to different towns, I guess, helping solve whatever little squabbles came up. And you’d be there, of course. So we could hang out and have some girl time whenever I didn’t have other stuff to take careof.”
I focused on her again. “But I have no idea when—if—I’ll get to that point. And that’s just whatI’dwant. You’ve got a life too. I wouldn’t want you sticking around if you’d be happier living a normal life. One where there weren’t vampires taking shots at us and who knows what else in thefuture.”
Kylie beamed back at me as if no possible future horror could faze her at all. “What’s so great about normal?” she said. “I just wanted to know where I’d fit in when you’re not worrying about my safety. Because this is exactly where I want to be too. If you’re happy to have me sticking around, if I can do some kind of job here instead of that crappy one back in NYC, I’m totally in. Sure, hanging out with shifters can be kind of scary, but it’s also prettyamazing.”
I swallowed hard, so much joy bubbling up inside me that I didn’t know what to do with it. “You’re sure?” I said. “Really,reallysure?”
Kylie laughed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it in the last couple days, you know. And there really hasn’t been even one moment where I wished I hadn’t come out here. So you’re meant to be queen of all shifters—I’m pretty sure I’m meant to be your right-hand girl. I might not have any paranormal destiny, but it feels fated tome.”
The emotion overwhelmed me. Talking didn’t seem like enough. I hopped up and grabbed my best friend in a hug. She squeezed me back. “There,” she said. “I’m glad we got that settled. Once and for all? You really need to stop trying to protect me. I’m a biggirl.”
“I know,” I said. “I promise, this is the last time I’ll bring it up. I just wanted to be completely sure. If something happened to you and I thought you’d only been there for mysake…”
“Nope,” Kylie said. “I’m one hundred percent in this for me too. I mean, just look at these digs.” She gestured to the room around her with a mischievous glint in her eyes. But when she turned back to me she’d gone a bit serious again. “I know what I’m getting into here, Ren. And I’m ready forit.”
I exhaled and gave her a crooked smile. “Good. I really hope that I am too. Come on, we’d better grab some dinner. I’d rather not be fighting vamps on an emptystomach.”
Chapter 4
Ren
“Doesthis crossroads give them any kind of an advantage if this comes down to a fight?” I asked West. I was sitting next to him in the jeep he’d picked from the assorted vehicles on hisestate.
He’d driven quickly most of the way out here, but the last twenty miles we were taking slow and wary. The vibration of the engine thrummed through the seat beneath me. A matching rumble carried through the air from the cars ahead of and behindus.
“Immediately around the crossroads the terrain is pretty open,” West said without taking his eyes off the road. “Not much shelter for us. I’d prefer surroundings like what we have right here if I had thechoice.”
He nodded to the pine forests looming on either side of the narrow highway. In the deepening night, the dark points of the treetops cut into the shadowy blue of the clouded sky. The moon still gleamed faintly through a thinner patch ofhaze.
One of his kin in the back had been in communication with the scouts West had sent ahead earlier. “Rayanne says there’s at least fifty of the vamps gathered now,” he said, a worried note in hisvoice.
West’s jaw tightened. The other alphas had come too, of course, in other cars, and a few dozen of West’s kin as well in case we needed back-up.But…
“If fifty vamps means fifty guns, we won’t stand much of a chance,” Isaid.
